viernes, marzo 31, 2006

Production Notes--"La Karla" was first performed on March 24, 1992, at the Eulipions Theater in Denver as part of Amor Picante Pero Sabroso by the Latina Lab of Su Teatro. The role of Karla was played by Susana Cordova.

OK, I have officially made it to the the 3/4 point in my first academic year at SF State.(my third job. my sixth year since I filed my diss)

Today is César Chávez Day, and next week is spring break.

I get to catch up on my sleep. I get to clean my room, do laundry, dry clean my clothes, help my baby with yard work, do grocery shopping, file our taxes, plan my autumn classes, pull my cats’ tails, go to a movie or go dancing, read something just for fun, write that book review that’s overdue, and not think about any faculty drama for ten days.

lunes, marzo 27, 2006

I’m urging you to write to your senators to express your opposition to HR 4437, to tell them that you’re NOT, actually, asking their opinion on the issue but telling them that the bill is MORALLY WRONG.

(So many times the responses I get to such letters--patronizing in the extreme--tell me why they have taken the opposite position of what I am suggesting and why. So I feel compelled to point out that I already know their professed stance and am actually taking issue with it, not asking for a justification.)

Below I have a sample letter to a senator from Sojourners, which is a progressive Christian evangelical group. I myself am not a Christian but back when I lived in Ohio, I regularly used the sample letters from Sojourner because I thought that they would be more likely to be taken seriously by my conservative representatives in Congress. And also that the term “as person of faith” while effectively describing my religious views would be incorrectly interpreted to mean, “as a God-fearing Christian.”

So the operative phrase in this letter is:

As a person of faith, I urge you to...

When I was feeling feisty, I would often change that phrase to:

As a woman of color, I urge you to...

But as I did so, I usually acknowledged that the reader would thus consign the letter to the “not my constituents” trashpile.

Part of me wonders why “woman of color” is seen as a less legitimate position from which to speak than “person of faith,” especially given that “Freedom of Religion” is one of the alleged cornerstones of our democracy.

Q:For how long in this country have non-Christian people of color had the right to practice their faith without government interference?

A: Less than thirty years, since the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978.

A)Amnesty for undocumented immigrants would be a slap in the face for all those who entered this country legally.

B) Allowing same sex couples to marry is an attack on the institution of marriage.

As stupid as we know B to be, it is uniquely effective in firing up the homofobic base of the Republican party.

Notice that no one is asking recent immigrants from Mexico and Central America if they feel this alleged slap in the face.

Rather, what they’re doing, is playing upon the fact the the US system of (health, education, welfare, justice, etc) already excludes majority-minority populations of ITS OWN CITIZENS, and that therefore these disenfranchised citizens will lose even more 1) if undocumented immigrants are added to their number while at the same time implying 2) undocumented immigrants will be given MORE rights than they.

But what I think the politicians are really saying--in both cases--is that extending rights to disenfranchised groups is “a slap in the face” to those who’ve always regarded those rights as part of their own privilege.

Q:For how long in this country have heterosexual people of color had the right to marry any person of the opposite sex whom they loved?

A: Less than forty years, since Loving v. Virginia, 1967.

I’ve been teaching Beloved and reading Mosquito—in which Gayl Jones argues that assisting refugees from Mexico and Central America is the work of the New Underground Railroad--and I can’t help seeing the similarities between HR 4437 and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.

Part of me feels like that’s a messy comparison to make. But another part of me feels like NOT making it is buying into this whole “slap in the face” ideology.

martes, marzo 21, 2006

I’m trying to track down Arnold Vinick (Alan Alda)’s description of California as the micro/macrocosm that is America from Sunday’s West Wing.

Amended: March 27

Vinick: The one state that has everything: big cities, small towns, mountains, deserts, farms, factories, fishermen, surfers, all races, all religions, gay, straight, everything this country has. There's more real America in California than anywhere else. If I can win California I can win the country.

Bruno: That's a nice speech just don't say it into any microphones. Because everyone else in the 49 other states thinks that California is a giant psycho ward.

sábado, marzo 18, 2006

Okay, let me just start by saying, in that bad queer-girl way, that I don’t always know where I end and my beloved partner-in-crime beings. I mean, I know, I know:

Two separate peopleTwo separate bodies

and lovers shouldn’t merge, outside the obvious.

But honestly, when laying in bed in the dark, discussing a movie you’ve just seen, who’s to say who said what first?

So, some of my L-Word ramblings come from L*s mouth, and really she should be blogging them, but she’s not so I am. Standard boilerplate disclaimer (i.e. credit her with the stuff that’s correct and fault me for whatever’s just plain wrong)

We’re about one episode behind on the L-word, but the last couple we watched both featured interactions between Carmen, Shane, and Carmen’s grandmother.

First, may I just say it’s a pleasure to see Latinas on the little screen. In my head I’ve been going through the permutations necessary to introduce to have a Chicana/o actor--they have the Chicana played by the Persian, which would be followed by the Haitian played by an African American, then an East Coast African American played by a Nuyorican, then a Persian played by a Chican@.

But look! See all those Spanish surnames in the opening credits? Is it possible we’re going to the oldest lesbian bar in the LA area, in the heart of Pico Rivera?

No, of course not. That would imply that there’s a whole world of Latina Lesbians who neither know nor care about Helena Peabody.

No, those Spanish surnames mean we’re going to the house of Carmen’s mama, where EVERY DAY IS A FIESTA. Because yes, according to Hollywood, if you’re going to show Latinos, you’re going to show a big crowd of them with a lot of food. Because Latinidad is ALL ABOUT FAMILIA. and COMIDA.

I confess to a passionate crush on the cigar-smoking grandma who tells her daughter, “orale, Mercedes, you’re daughter’s a dyke. so cute, those marimachas.” (well, she would if *I* were writing the dialogue).

So there’s the scene where Carmen’s grandma admires Shane’s tattoo and says Carmen’s is just like it, and se aparecen como anillos de matrimonio. Or, to translate for the English-only viewer“

Carmen’s grandmother says SOMETHING IN SPANISH, that leads to significant looks from the mother, which precipitates a scene of confrontation and homofobia.

See, part of me was actually foolish enough to believe that the Spanish-speaking viewer was actually being interpellated into the ”familia knows“ subtext, but that foolish expectation was brought up short by the one-two punch ”Mama’s gonna fix Shane up with a man because LATINOS HATE QUEERS!“

Mejor puta que lesbiana

Of course, mouthy child that I am, the responses that run through my head are ”Are you sure Ma? ‘Cause you already got a bunch of putas I thought you might like a little variation“--since the skinny bitch sisters in the familia SO don’t have Carmen’s back.

Then I was thinking about how every season they have to have the straight white male viewer watching. (Jenny’s boyfriend, then the roommate video cam guy, and now--Dylan’s husband, although Kit’s manwich is fitting in really nicely)

Not that I think they think ”straight white guy“ but rather ”straight guy,“ since they have to work really hard to remember that people of color ARE Los Angeles.

Or, wait, how about their attention to class issues? Because suddenly hairdresser and dj are top-dollar jobs, and then the only overtly ”working class“ character is a big ol’ MOOCHER. Mooching off her/his girlfriend and expecting the rich bitches to pay for his surgery.

jueves, marzo 16, 2006

I am writing to express my concern for immigrants in this country and the churches, community organizations, and civic institutions that help them. As you know, the House of Representatives passed the Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act (H.R. 4437) in December. This bill, if enacted into law, would expand the definition of smuggling so broadly that anyone who aids undocumented immigrants, even in providing basic services, could be legally prosecuted. This law penalizes many faith-based organizations that provide direct services to those in need.

As a person of faith, I urge you to pursue compassion instead of criminalization. I hope you will reject punitive measures that harm immigrants and those who help them. Over the coming days and weeks, the Senate Judiciary Committee - and possibly the full Senate - will consider immigration proposals.

I am concerned about the Senate Judiciary Committee bill, currently being debated, as well as legislation reportedly being introduced by Majority Leader Bill Frist. Either bill might ultimately include all or many of these provisions: deny refugees adequate protection if they have used false documentation to escape an oppressor, impose a guilty until proven innocent standard for immigrants, and limit judicial review. Both efforts also fail to provide a path to citizenship for hard-working undocumented immigrants; instead merely creating a permanent subclass of guest workers.

Please oppose any bill resembling HR 4437. Instead of approving legislation with any of these troubling provisions, I hope that you will urge your colleagues, especially Majority Leader Frist and those on the Senate Judiciary Committee, to support comprehensive immigration reform that works to unite families, reward work, and create opportunities for all. Thank you for your consideration. I look forward to hearing your response to this matter.

The guy in the next office, I have unofficially nicknamed “the cougher.” He coughs in his office all the time. I’ve made a mental note to myself to

take the vacuum into the office if I ever start coughing, and

leave a packet of cough drops outside his door

I know I won’t do the latter because that seems mean. But anytime I settle into my office and he’s there, the cough distracts me. Like the dog barking next door. (not the dog at the office, XlB, who is a fluffy black chow who never barks, but will occasionaly “whuff” like a bear. more like the dog in my neighborhood who sort of bawls all day long. drives me nuts)

So I play a little office music. I have to pick the right something, since obviously, i don’t want the music to distract me in place of the coughing, but rather to provide a filter. My regular choices are the Virgin of Guadalupe albums from the San Antonio Vocal Arts Ensemble (indigenous-mestizo music from the early colonial period in Mexico, played with period instruments or a capella). When I was in NM, I copied a disk of my mom’s, Chopin and Champagne, which also works. Yo-Yo Ma is often too intense--I’m more likely to play that when I want to get my mind off something else.

But today I remembered a gift from my soon-to-be-sister *u*u, a 3-disk set of music of the Seven Stringed Harp (which is women’s instrument) by Ming Qn-Zhang Zqan. So I’m loading it onto my computer for protection from coughs. (or, at least I’m loading the first two disks. Number three is unaccountably being rejected.

lunes, marzo 13, 2006

So in our household, we academic poch@s xican@s read in the SF Chronicle that in the Aztec Calendar, this weekend marked the new year, Tochtli, the Year of the Rabbit. We're kind of wondering "is this for real"-- i.e. is this an ongoing movement, or is this a contemporary re-claiming. Which is also our questions about danzantes, matachines, and Aztec Dancers, Do these all refer to the same thing. I'll have to ask the two people I know doing research on this, Elisa and Norma.

(I've always loved how tuff these rabbits look! My sister and I used to tease each other about killer rabbits, and that's what these tochtli look like, like they could kick some predator butt)

I've been feeling rundown and tired, too, because I've been missing my weekend walks. Partly the weather--you know we had snow in the Bay Area this weekend?--and partly family commitments that take up weekend workout time. My mother-outlaw (M-O) and father-outlaw (F-O) just gave L* and I this beautiful calendar from the Native American Wellness Center--which highlights the importance of vegetables in Indian America.

So because of the rain, and because of this pressure I feel in my forehead--a symptom of the pressure I feel in my life--I’ve been thinking I need to find an exercise alternative to long walks. Long walks on a treadmill are sounding really good to me right now--with the right tunes or an audiobook, or even just my head.

I had made an appointment to check out a commercial gym near work, but I’m not really keen on it, and I especially don’t want to get a membership and then not use it. So my goals for this week are to check out the gym on campus, and at the Native American Wellness Center, which I walk past on my way to BART and work. The hours for the latter are a little bit limited (10am-5pm i think) but that would actually work well on my non-work days (Tuesday-Thursday this semester) and I could either walk there or catch the bus. Downside to the campus gym is hauling another bag (workout clothes, shoes, etc) to and from work every day.

sábado, marzo 11, 2006

I bought Fledgling--Octavia Butler’s vampire novel--right when it came out. Read the first chapter and put it away. (I had classes to prep for, etc.).

so after hearing of Butler’s death, one of the first things I had to do was read Fledgling. Because it went from being her latest novel to her last novel. And you know how authors hate it when they’ve just come out with a new book and you only want to talk about the one they wrote twenty years ago!

Now, first off, let me just say that I want to slug all the reviewers who think that Butler is the first to write an African American woman vampire. Hello! Jewelle Gomez: The Gilda Stories, 1991. Just because you ain’t read it doesn’t mean it ain’t been done.

But Butler’s Fledgling--I mean, obviously you can see the patterns of her other writings in this book. For me, anyway, the construct ooloi comes most forcibly to mind. But the Patternmaster novels too, and of course the re-ocurring themes of community and (most explicitly here) symbiotic relationships.

But I really didn’t want this novel to end. Partly because it has the potential for a whole series of books. And partly--again--because it’s the last one.

I read Michelle Cliff’s Free Enterprise yesterday. The whole book. I’ve had it for prob’ly a year, and I know I’ve read the first chapter before this but for some reason stopped there. As I was reading it yesterday, I realized that a dream I wrote about last July,--the Black Bonnet Dream, the House scene, anyway--is totally from this book. La Vieja Ines in the coal scuttle bonnet is prob’ly MEP in the attic where Annie lay upon the slave-pieced coverlet.

Yesterday I picked it up to read on the commute home, and I was just delighted at how smart--brilliant--and welcoming this book is to me. The funny thing is I’m feeling now that Aurora Levins Morales must have read this book as she was writing Remedios. (Free Enterprise was first published in 1993, Remedios was published in 1999, though I remember Levins Morales doing a reading from the manuscript [dissertation] in Santa Cruz in 1997.) They’re doing a lot of the same things--weaving together stories of different women of color, or rather showing how they’re already interwoven.

There’s real rich history texturing this novel. You can see the tremendous poet that Cliff is, but it doesn’t take away from the brilliant crafting of this novel.

Why am I sometimes afraid of reading books? I could have been enriched by this book for 13 years (if I’d known about it), or at least six, since the first time I heard about it was when the author of Granny Midwives was telling me about her next project.

The first book I admitted to being afraid of reading was Felicia Luna Lemus’ Trace Elements of Random Tea Parties. I was just finishing my book at the time, and L* suggested that I should read Lemus because, she said, “I think this is the next thing.” (i.e. what comes after the late 20th-century construction of Chicana lesbian that I look at in my book). And that was just too intimidating for me, like the novel would potentially make everything I said in my book already-obsolete.

miércoles, marzo 08, 2006

I read your blog and since I am not a blogger I couldn't respond on the blog.

I had problems with anger since it was not the lady like thing to do or not acceptable for girl children to have a voice in my family or in the Catholic school system in the 1950s.

When I confessed my sins--like I was being molested by a adult--the priest called me a sinner and stared me down next day at mass. So at 10 years young I kept my mouth shut, since then I had many sore throats from eating my sins. My relief was my best friend Yogi, my dog. He was a good listener and still loved me.

As a young woman I was kidnapped and raped, luckily I was kept alive and I think it was because I didn't say a word. I ate my fear and became immobile.What was anger? What was happiness? What was joy?

I was the perfect lady. My family was proud of me.

Who was I?

Time passed quietly.......

Then a friend came along and shared her pain with me , I opened my wound and she allowed me to cry and to be angry. My friend was me and since then I have been talking till I had no need because I had me and some good listeners. I try to surround myself with friends now instead of isolation and depression. I am thankful for birds, pets, L*, Yo, Yo2 Bec, and countless listeners.

The maddest I've ever been was prob'ly eleven or twelve years ago, when I had moved in with my friends after the cheating ex had done the cheating ex thing. And she had the nerve to call me there and tell me she was coming over.

And I hurled myself in my truck and drove all of about three blocks to the Pacific Super--which is a most fabulous asian supermarket at Alemany @San Jose--you can see it from the BART--and where you can buy coconut ice cream and balikbayan boxes, and tremendous produce, and pan de leche, but no tortillas--and I get out in the parking lot and proceed to grab shopping carts and smash them into one another. SMASH SMASH SMASH SMASH SMASH. a great feeling of destruction without actually destroying anything. i mean, shopping carts are pretty sturdy little vehicles, and part of their design is for them to smash into one another. SMASH SMASH SMASH SMASH SMASH.

I was that mad today. I had visions of shopping carts. and my brain was sending me one message: call L*. She was there and it made all the difference

and it was 5 minutes before I had to teach a class, and i had visions of smashing those desks into one another. But L* had given me me a lifeline, and guess what, class isn't all about me. Plus I looked into their little (20-year-old) faces and remembered how last class they were saying how I'm not a scary profe

if they only knew how much work it is to keep the scary well-hid! that the scary demon inside of me could turn their hair white with words alone...

lunes, marzo 06, 2006

The best part of taking public transportation is not the virtuous glow i feel, knowing that there’s one less car on the road. Nor is it the jazzed feeling i get walking to BART from my house in the morning--even though that’s an essential part of my day. Nor is it the fact that I’m almost always early to where I’m going. I’ve only been late once this academic year and it took several bad decisions in a row for that to happen.

I drove in one Friday last month and the hardest thing about the whole long and stressful experience was trying to stay awake the 1 1/2 hour drive home in stop-and-go traffic.

No, the best part of taking public transportation--BART in particular--is that at the end of a really long day, you can sleep all the way home. And I did.

In my earlier post about the Manifestacion Pro-Inmigrante, I inadvertently confused two separate messages from my dear Pen Pal.

Dear Ms. Ktrion:

Thank you for writing to me about the "Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005" (H.R. 4437). I appreciate hearing your views on this bill and the issue of immigration, and I welcome the opportunity to respond.

The House of Representatives passed H.R. 4437 on December 16th and the bill was then referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee for consideration. The Judiciary Committee, of which I am a member, may consider immigration reform legislation this year. Chairman Specter has already expressed an interest in crafting a comprehensive immigration reform bill based on pending Senate bills.

I do not support H.R. 4437, the House passed bill. Although this bill is not presently scheduled for hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee, I do not anticipate that the Senate will pass it in its present form. Know that I will keep your comments in mind as the Senate moves forward on immigration reform.

Again, thank you for writing. I hope that you will continue to write to me on issues of importance to you.

Best regards.Sincerely yours,Dianne FeinsteinUnited States Senator

and so you see that Dianne does not support HR 4437, and that at least is a good thing. the other message with which I confused it was regarding amnesty for undocumented workers:

Dear M. Ktrion:

Thank you for writing me about a possible blanket amnesty. I appreciate hearing from you.

I do not support blanket amnesty for illegal immigrants. As the daughter of a Russian immigrant, I understand the hope and the optimism with which countless others view our country. I believe America is rooted in a tradition of newcomers working hard and building a better life for themselves and their families. We must balance this tradition, however, with our ability to integrate new immigrants into the American society that follow the proper channels to legal immigration. Our ability to accept immigrants and our immigration policy must support and strengthen families, create economic opportunities, increase scientific and cultural resources, and fulfill humanitarian commitments.

Again, thank you for writing to me. If you have any further questions or comments on this or any other issue, please do not hesitate to call my Washington, D.C. staff at (202) 224-3841.

Sincerely yours,Dianne FeinsteinUnited States Senator

As the daughter of Russian immigrants and as the Senator from California, Dianne ought to be aware of the pro-European, anti-American [meaning Latin/Indigenous America] bias to US immigration policies. We in the College of Ethnic Studies would be more than happy to arrange a lesson. Right after the SFPD has its lesson on racial profiling.

jueves, marzo 02, 2006

According to All Consuming, I’ve now been reading Almanac of the Dead for 23 weeks. I’m really into it right now. Of course I’m reading it in the evenings in the tub, and it’s pretty hard to drag me out of there. The Marxist was just hung for crimes against indigenous people’s history.

You know what drives me crazy? When I’m reading a book and totally loving it and thinking “no way could I ever teach this in a class.”

Awaiting L*s return from a late meeting, I finally got all caught up on Project Runway! It was a little disappointing, though, because as i was watching the episodes with the final five and the final four, the ads for the big weekend finale listed the names of the final three. oh well. Lost one who i really liked. Kept one just to keep the drama, I'm sure.

Today I turned the compost heap. It stinks. It’s not degrading. I mean, it’s not breaking down into rich stuff for garden soil. I’m this close to throwing the whole thing in the Yard Waste bin and starting from scratch.

miércoles, marzo 01, 2006

I did not get my cenizas on. I might have L* do them for me when she gets home. We do this some years, because I like the significance and the ritual, but no longer necessarily feel the need for a priest.

Still, I shoulda gone to Sta Elizabeths, just to be around the people.

On the walk to BART this morning I saw many happy people who had just come from there and were now enjoying tamales or champurrado or pupusas or elotes from the street vendors. The funny thing is, I think the priest there must have little thumbs or something because most of the cruces de ceniza looked like little tattoos.

My day was hell and included tears in public. Oh well, at least it shows I’m human. (apparently something people are in danger of forgetting. it must be all those superhuman skills I have, like running up the escalator in high-heeled boots. although today I didn’t even have my lipstick with me, so i was practically already kryptonited even before the meeting)

a famous quote by another junior colleague:

There’s a fine line between productivity and alcoholism.

OK, I guess I’ll wait till L* gets home before I have that glass of wine, just so I don’t feel like I’m on the wrong side of that line.